What are the general possibilities of a so-called "black brother", who, due to certain insecurities failed to cross the abyss, lost the solid contact with his HGA and fell off the path into the dead zone?

Can the whole thing be brought back up somehow (to finish the job)? Can the contact be redeemed?

x-munki wrote:What are the general possibilities of a so-called "black brother", who, due to certain insecurities failed to cross the abyss, lost the solid contact with his HGA and fell off the path into the dead zone?

Can the whole thing be brought back up somehow (to finish the job)? Can the contact be redeemed?

Crowley gave his most complete answer to this in his commentary to Liber LXV, Cap. IV, v. 34. Though I would refer you to the entire commentary for a deeper understanding, I'll summarize the bottom line:

The Exempt Adept who is "beaten back from the City pof the Pyramids by failure to comply perfectly with the formula of 'love under will'" remains "lost in the Abyss, with no future possibility other than to identify himself in turn with each incoherent and unintelligible phenomenon that appers in the sensorium of the man, who has been disintegrated..." This is in sharp contrast to the Dominus Liminis aspiring to Adeptus Minor who, in the event of failure, can just try again.

Or, as One Star in Sight says,

Should he fail, by will or weakness, to make his self-annihilation absolute, he is none the less thrust forth into the Abyss... he remains in the Abyss, secreting his elements round his Ego as if isolated from the Universe, and becomes what is called a “Black Brother.” Such a being is gradually disintegrated from lack of nourishment and the slow but certain action of the attraction of the rest of the Universe, despite his now desperate efforts to insulate and protect himself, and to aggrandise himself by predatory practices. He may indeed prosper for a while, but in the end he must perish, especially when with a new Aeon a new word is proclaimed which he cannot and will not hear, so that he is handicapped by trying to use an obsolete method of Magick, like a man with a boomerang in a battle where everyone else has a rifle.

The one who was a Black Brother can begin the climb back up in a subsequent lifetime (not necessarily the next one). The timing will depend on many karmic factors and (it seems to me) especially on the pace and thoroughness of the distintegration.

"disintegrated" - "lost in the Abyss, with no future possibility other than to identify himself in turn with each incoherent and unintelligible phenomenon that appers in the sensorium of the man, who has been disintegrated..."

and

"anhihilated" - "Should he fail, by will or weakness, to make his self-annihilation absolute, he is none the less thrust forth into the Abyss..."

----

One is no longer integrated as a whole... the other is no longer at all? That's more obvious, but what does annihilation mean about the person?

Is one like.... trying to support a crippled ego (in denial of its non-existence), trying to reassert itself after a shattering experience...? While the other can accept the ego as illusory, or something?

I think the main consideration here is the definition of "the man" in the first quote, i.e., a person in general. What people normally think of as "a person" - what most people think of as themselves - isn't a thing in and of itself. It is a relationship of innumerable disparate parts held together much the same way that individual water droplets form a water spout under the right conditions. This "water tornado" appears to be a distinctive thing, a solid thing, a thing in-and-of-itself, but actually it is just a bunch of individual drops held together by the tornadic conditions.

Similarly, "the man" in the first quote, and "he" in the second quote, means a sustained pattern or relationship among innumerable individual units of consciousness (memory, thought, sensation, whatever). In the Abyss, this cohesive pattern is suspended. If the ego were a water spout, it would simply halt, and all the condensed water droplets would... drop.

So - the "man" not being exactly a fiction, but being a relationship of otherwise dissociated components held together by a vortex of self-conscious identification, when this process happens the man thus understood is annihilated - completedly ceases to exist - because the integration of the composing units collapses. Annihilation and disintegration are, therefore - in this instance - the same thing.

Not necessarily. (Perhaps I should say "not usually.") In some cases, they are marked by extreme, high-functioning rationality. (In fact, usually they are. Remember that this is someone who has already attained the 7=4 Grade of Adeptus Exemptus.)

For someone to reach 5=6, I'd assume that the ego had been examined to some extent, even if, obviously, not entirely vanquished. Why, then, might somebody continue to pursue an obviously egoic path for themselves at 7=4? I'm not denying that it happens, since I think I briefly clashed with such an individual earlier this year. At least, he seemed en route to such a destination. I'm just curious what the traps in the path might be that would lead someone to fall into what appears to be a kind of spiritual narcissism, when transcending the mundane self has already been a significant and necessary attainment.

Edward Mason wrote:I'm just curious what the traps in the path might be that would lead someone to fall into what appears to be a kind of spiritual narcissism, when transcending the mundane self has already been a significant and necessary attainment.

93 93/93,Edward

I think, at this point, its not about spiritual narcissism or consciously choosing any sort of egoic path, or anything like that (i dont think that's really possible at this level), its usually more a matter of various deep-rooted insecurities and fears that come up at that point, and general ignorance, that hold the individual back from plunging forth into unknown, and which then may, in effect, actually (automatically) reinforce any remaining weakened ego structures that were on their way to annihilation...

IOW, it's not that you aren't ready to give up the ego... it's that there are certain major insecurities that keep you in it's company, that keep you stuck with it... until you basically fall off the track, and the momentum gets pretty much lost.

But i guess, if after such a (more-or-less unwilling) fall, one is consciously working his way out of the remaining ego-maze, working his thought out, and getting a clear perspective on the insecurities that came up in the process, and resolving them, i mean, isn't "climbing back up" only reasonable progression?

I mean, for one who is actually willing to "die", and has consciously done everything he could after the fall to disintegrate himself, has cleared up any confusion that held him stuck, and is not interested in clinging to anything, what does HE ACTUALLY HAS LEFT other than to climb back up and live??

Experiencing the freedom of pre-moral states of consciousness is heady wine.

Fear of becoming a psychopath - of stepping beyond/above the moral realm on a one-way ticket is a legitimate fear.

I think counteracting this possibility is one of the functions of the Bodhisattva vow taken at this stage (if I'm not mistaken about when it's taken).

Conversely, seeing the futility of the ego and its priorities, having had a taste of the pleasure and freedom of pre-moral states of consciousness, one may have no desire whatsoever to take the Bodhisattva vow, desiring only to enjoy the pleasure and freedom for oneself. And in attempting to cross the abyss without the vow, one may be rejected by the brotherhood of those who have successfully crossed and be cast down.

Also, functionally, the vow may be the only thing that holds an individual together - or serves as the only stable, viable thing around which to reconstruct(?) the destroyed personality.

Edward Mason wrote:93, I'm just curious what the traps in the path might be that would lead someone to fall into what appears to be a kind of spiritual narcissism, when transcending the mundane self has already been a significant and necessary attainment.

93 93/93,Edward

I was thinking that it might have something to do with the statement that

"The Brothers of A.'.A.'. are Women: the Aspirants to A.'.A.'. are Men."

Sounds like a little bit more then the ego is being left behind....

And if we look into the evolution of human, we may see in our sex chromosomes how this could play out.

I know that post there. But that business and humor is both off topic in a Temple of Thelema and beneath me. I'd hope it was beneath you. But perhaps you have no will in the matter, a mere victim of the times.

(how's that for genuine trolling?)

"If we are to have Beauty and Love, whether in begetting children or works of art, or what not, we must have perfect freedom to act, without fear or shame or any falsity."

There are a couple of possibilities from experience that I could see leading to the creation of a Black Brother.

First, even (or perhaps especially) in those sincerely seeking to overcome the personal ego, you cannot underestimate the subtlety and dangerousness of the spiritual ego (In Buddhism, the desire for enlightenment is described as the great and beneficent desire; but it is also described as the final desire that must be overcome).

Second, the process of getting to the edge of the abyss is a process of building up in successive works, gaining in amplitude of one's being; but once you get there you find that not only did everything that you did before and everything that served you well before is not going to work here, its not going to function, but also that you have to take a position that is in many ways completely the opposite of what you were doing before, a total surrender (of a very different kind than the "surrender" to the HGA when achieving the K&C).There are people who can get stuck in the Abyss because of a refusal to let go of trying to get past the abyss by "Doing". There are also those who can get stuck in the Abyss because they can't get rid of a single idea, a single thing they hold to be true, or a single aspiration. Because like Faust they ask to linger just a little while.

Swamiji wrote: There are also those who can get stuck in the Abyss because they can't get rid of a single idea, a single thing they hold to be true, or a single aspiration.

Oh yeah, that's me... I just couldn't let go of a certain aspiration/"ideal" (although there were all sorts of peculiar messages from the universe clearly pointing that I SHOULD let go of it NOW, i guess), so I got stuck and eventually withered.

Swamiji wrote: There are also those who can get stuck in the Abyss because they can't get rid of a single idea, a single thing they hold to be true, or a single aspiration.

Oh yeah, that's me... I just couldn't let go of a certain aspiration/"ideal" (although there were all sorts of peculiar messages from the universe clearly pointing that I SHOULD let go of it NOW, i guess), so I got stuck and eventually withered.

Nicely put.

Did you eventually let go of it and felt the angel return to you? Not that it actually goes away but it feels like that...

Seeing you guys and gals speak about the Abyss like that, I have a question if I may:have you crossed it already?

If so, would you be willing to elaborate a bit on the subject, please?

I could be wrong about this but, when I just asked myself if I have ever crossed the abyss, and I reflected on what I thought I knew that to mean, (which entailed ordeals, tests, and basic ripping to shreads of each molecule of my psyche and rebuilding), and what I thought I understood as the requirement to be able to withstand and survive the ordeals, ect...

I wondered if I was on the otherside,Because it just seems as if my life can be summed intoThe time before the ordealsAnd now.

I'm not trying to single anyone out here and I'm not necessarily even talking about anyone involved in this discussion, but I've heard so many times (on forums, in certain books and from magicians I've known personally) that they've "crossed the abyss". Which I generall took to be a claim to have attained the spiritual level equivalant to A.'.A.'. 8=3, but upon further questioning it's generally revealed that most of these people have no real attainment in magic or mysticism, and have usually not even attained K&C. It sounds to me like this is based on understanding the Abyss and its Ordeal in very poetic, metaphoric ways rather than as technical terms describing specific events/states/experiences/etc.

For most of them what would seem to be more accurate would be to say "I suffered from Major Depresson and it was a transformational experience." (Though plenty are just full of s**t.) Which is not at all to belittle that experience. I know first hand how intense, painful and ultimately how profoundly life changing it can be. The shamanic concept of a spiritual illness is probably appropriate for many people, but even there it's appropriately seen an early initiatory experience, setting up the conditions that will one day allow one to become a shaman. I also know that the language of being cast into an abyss, or having your ego ripped to shreds, losing everything that you are, and then being born anew on the other side are very appropriate to this experience.

I'm not trying to criticize or deny anyone's attainment here. My real point is that I think it's very dangerous to prematurely believe that you've attained so highly. And tying this back into the main topic here, I imagine that many Black Brothers would be completely ignorant of their condition, deluding themselves into thinking that they had transcended and lost their egos.

Obviously, most of the people who say these things aren't Black Brothers, since they've never made it anywhere near 7=4, but that's not to say that some of them aren't capable of getting there someday...

Dar es Allarah wrote:I think we need a special space set aside for people undergoing the abyss. Somewhere away from families and children. And this needs to be an international inter-temple effort.

There is a special category newly set aside under the recent review of the DSM that deals with ‘spiritual problems’ that I believe we can use to get funding for such an effort.

Would such segregation prevent them from actually crossing the Abyss? I mean... don't they need to assimilate everything in the end to realize "the end" (which, really... has a lot to do with what you are recommending you segregate them from... ie, everything else that is not "them").

"If we are to have Beauty and Love, whether in begetting children or works of art, or what not, we must have perfect freedom to act, without fear or shame or any falsity."